To The Rescue. Jean Barrett
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located at inadequate intervals.
It was either by chance, or because her memory was served by necessity, that Jennifer found the bathroom. But once she had used the primitive plumbing and was on her way back to her room, that memory failed her.
She realized after several minutes of wandering that she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. There was nothing familiar now about the route. She was lost. Coming to a stop beneath one of the weak lanterns high on the wall, she tried to get her bearings.
Jennifer thought of herself as a realist and not easily unnerved, even about things she couldn’t readily explain. So maybe what happened next was simply because of the setting. The absolute stillness of this dim passage was certainly eerie enough to activate the imagination, making her suddenly aware of her aloneness here.
Except she wasn’t alone, because without warning a figure appeared down at the end of the corridor that stretched away into the shadows, moving toward her. His long, pale robe identified him as one of the monks. Help at last!
“I can’t seem to find my way back to my room,” she called out to him. “Can you direct me, please?”
He must have heard her, but he didn’t answer her. Didn’t so much as pause as he continued to glide along the passage.
“Hello,” she called again.
Still no response. How could he not be conscious of her presence? And his gait…there was something not right about his gait. It was so slow and smooth, as if he weren’t walking but floating. Like a wraith.
Jennifer was no longer relieved by his arrival. In fact, she was far less than that when he turned and suddenly disappeared, as if he’d passed through a solid wall. Alone again, she shivered.
Not a ghost, she told herself firmly. There had to be an explanation, probably a cross passage down which he had vanished. But she was in no mood to investigate that likelihood. All she wanted was to get away from here and back to her room.
Swinging around with the intention of retracing her route, Jennifer slammed into a wall. It was a barrier composed not of stone or timber but of hard flesh.
Uttering a little cry of alarm, she threw up her hands in a gesture of self-defense. Her palms came into searing contact with a warm, naked chest. Although he had managed to sneak up behind her without a sound, there was no question of any apparition this time. He was very real.
Her gaze collided with his, and for a long moment she found herself trapped by a pair of whiskey-colored eyes that burned into hers with a disarming intensity. She wasn’t sure at what point she realized it wasn’t only his gaze that held her. A pair of strong hands grasped her by the elbows, locking her against him.
Her palms, still flat against that tantalizing chest, seemed to sizzle. She removed them with a breathless “Let me go.”
But he didn’t release her. He went on staring at her with a harsh expression in his eyes. Then, in a slow, gruff voice, he warned her, “It won’t do you any good to run. Wherever you go, I’ll find you.”
There was something about the way he said it, something in his entire manner that—
It struck her then. Leo McKenzie didn’t know what he was saying, probably didn’t know how he had managed to slip away from Brother Timothy and catch her here. He was disoriented. Was it the result of whatever kind of sedative the monk had given him, or—
Disassociated fugue.
A condition caused by a trauma, like a blow to the head. It could leave the victim confused, not responsible for his actions or his words, even rob him of any memory of his behavior afterwards. Leo McKenzie had suffered such a blow in the accident.
Was he dangerous like this? Maybe not, but the situation was far too intimate for comfort. She was suddenly conscious of things she hadn’t noticed before. Unsettling things, like the stubble on his jaw and the tattoo of a salamander that wrapped itself halfway around his right bicep. They made him look tough.
And, admit it, sexy.
Uh-uh, much as she longed for the answers, this was definitely not the time to ask him how and why he had pursued her to Yorkshire. Even if she wasn’t afraid of him, and that was not a certainty, he was in no state for any rational conversation.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised him as gently as possible, “so you don’t need to hang onto me any longer.”
Those hypnotic, whiskey-colored eyes continued to search her own eyes, narrowing now as if he were wondering whether he could trust her.
“Please,” she added softly.
For a moment she wondered whether he understood her plea. Then his hands on her elbows slowly relaxed. Taking a deep breath, Jennifer removed herself from his grip and put several safe feet between them.
He looked so suddenly bewildered that she felt sorry for him. Especially when, able to look down his full length now, she saw that he wore nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that Brother Timothy must have dug out of his suitcase.
Jennifer was no expert on what the modern man wore to bed. From her limited experience, guys either slept in the raw or in T-shirts and boxer shorts. But Leo McKenzie’s hard body in those bottoms could have started a whole new craze for pajamas.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked him, noticing that his feet were bare against the stone-flagged floor.
He didn’t answer her.
“You must be cold. Come on,” she coaxed him, “let me take you back to your room.”
Would he go with her, or would he resist? He hesitated for a few seconds when she started to edge away along the passage, but then he willingly fell into step beside her. Good. Now she had only one other problem. Exactly where were their rooms?
She needn’t have worried. Dazed or not, his sense of direction was better than hers. She ended up following him, and by some instinct she didn’t understand, maybe the same one that had led him to her, he took them straight back to their rooms.
A worried Brother Timothy burst out of Leo’s room when they arrived. “Praise the saints, you found him!” he welcomed Jennifer. “I went and dozed off in that chair, I’m ashamed to say, and when I opened my eyes again he was gone.”
“I ran into him on my way back from a visit to the loo,” Jennifer said, using the British term for a bathroom for the sake of clarity. She didn’t feel the need to offer any further explanation about the whole episode. Brother Timothy looked worried enough.
“He’s all right then, is he?”
“I think so. Just…well, not with it yet.”
“That’d be the medicine.” He turned to his patient. “Come on, matey, you’ve been busy enough for one night. Let’s get you back to bed where you belong.”
Silent and docile now, Leo permitted the monk to take him inside the bedroom. Brother Timothy thanked Jennifer, wished her a good night, and closed the door behind them.
Jennifer entered her own bedroom, threw more peat on the smoking remains of the fire in the grate and crawled into bed. She, too, had had enough for one night.
Her brain refused to shut down, though. It was infuriatingly busy with the image of Leo McKenzie. That encounter with him in the passage had impacted her far more strongly than she cared to admit. Her hands still tingled from their contact with his chest.
Damn. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
Chapter Three
No more midnight spooks, Jennifer thought with relief, opening her eyes to the first gray light of morning seeping into the room.
Or maybe she wasn’t relieved. A glance in the direction of the window showed her that the snow was still coming down. Just how bad was it?
Very bad, she decided when, leaving